The Lancashire Witches eBook

on the other’s laughing features. Different
were they too, in degree, and here social position
was infinitely in favour of the fairer girl, but no
one would have judged it so if not previously acquainted
with their history. Indeed, it was rather the
one having least title to be proud (if any one has
such title) who now seemed to look up to her companion
with mingled admiration and regard; the latter being
enthralled at the moment by the rich notes of a thrush
poured from a neighbouring lime-tree.

Pleasant was the garden where the two girls stood,
shaded by great trees, laid out in exquisite parterres,
with knots and figures, quaint flower-beds, shorn
trees and hedges, covered alleys and arbours, terraces
and mounds, in the taste of the time, and above all
an admirably kept bowling-green. It was bounded
on the one hand by the ruined chapter-house and vestry
of the old monastic structure, and on the other by
the stately pile of buildings formerly making part
of the Abbot’s lodging, in which the long gallery
was situated, some of its windows looking upon the
bowling-green, and then kept in excellent condition,
but now roofless and desolate. Behind them, on
the right, half hidden by trees, lay the desecrated
and despoiled conventual church. Reared at such
cost, and with so much magnificence, by thirteen abbots—­the
great work having been commenced, as heretofore stated,
by Robert de Topcliffe, in 1330, and only completed
in all its details by John Paslew; this splendid structure,
surpassing, according to Whitaker, “many cathedrals
in extent,” was now abandoned to the slow ravages
of decay. Would it had never encountered worse
enemy! But some half century later, the hand
of man was called in to accelerate its destruction,
and it was then almost entirely rased to the ground.
At the period in question though partially unroofed,
and with some of the walls destroyed, it was still
beautiful and picturesque—­more picturesque,
indeed than in the days of its pride and splendour.
The tower with its lofty crocketed spire was still
standing, though the latter was cracked and tottering,
and the jackdaws roosted within its windows and belfry.
Two ranges of broken columns told of the bygone glories
of the aisles; and the beautiful side chapels having
escaped injury better than other parts of the fabric,
remained in tolerable preservation. But the choir
and high altar were stripped of all their rich carving
and ornaments, and the rain descended through the
open rood-loft upon the now grass-grown graves of
the abbots in the presbytery. Here and there the
ramified mullions still retained their wealth of painted
glass, and the grand eastern window shone gorgeously
as of yore. All else was neglect and ruin.
Briers and turf usurped the place of the marble pavement;
many of the pillars were festooned with ivy; and,
in some places, the shattered walls were covered with
creepers, and trees had taken root in the crevices
of the masonry. Beautiful at all times were these
magnificent ruins; but never so beautiful as when seen
by the witching light of the moon—­the hour,
according to the best authority, when all ruins should
be viewed—­when the long lines of broken
pillars, the mouldering arches, and the still glowing
panes over the altar, had a magical effect.